When Saints Fall
by musicandme37
Summary: 'They were jumped right outside McGinty's. The place where everything had begun was also ironically the location of the beginning of the end. Not that the brothers knew it at the time.' Warnings: Character deaths and violence.


**I am back with another Saints fic! (Thank you to everyone who read/reviewed/faved my first fic: The Boondock Sons). Sadly this fic is a hell of a lot less happy than the last one. In fact this fic is just pure macabre and morbid, but I hope you guys enjoy reading it nonetheless.**

**Warnings: Character deaths, bloody violence, bad language (So rated M to be on the safe side).**  
**Pairings: None.**

**Note: The parts of writing in _italic font_ are to narrate events that happened several hours before the rest of the fic, just to clarify.**

* * *

Max Coulson wasn't a religious man. Never really had been.

In fact, he reckoned this was the first time he'd set foot in a church in about fifteen years.

There had been a phone call from a civilian who had claimed they had heard a commotion within a disused church in the early hours of the morning and believed that someone may have broken into it. Max had still been at the station finishing a mountain of paperwork caused by the latest stint of gang disruption spawned from the release of The Saints from the Hoag. He was beginning to regret his choice of being a cop in the Boston Police Department. He was two more mob massacres away from filing for a transfer.

The church was ten minutes away from the station and on Max's route home, so he had offered to check it out before he was off duty for the few precious hours he had before he had to go back to the mind-numbingly dull paper mountain again.

So here he stood, on the steps of St. Pete's; a church that, to his knowledge, hadn't been used in the entire three years he'd been in the Boston PD and at least another two more years besides. There were a lot of churches in Boston, hell, there were a lot of folk in Boston too; yet some churches thrived whilst others dwindled until there wasn't a congregation left for the priest to preach to. Max guessed it depended on the area the church was in. But how would he know? He wasn't a religious man.

St Pete's looked pretty old, but was boxed in by big industrial-grey stone buildings on either side. It was dwarfed by their size, small and withered and looking like it didn't belong there, when it had in fact, been there first. Across the road were rows of plain bricked housing, one of which being where the tip-off had come from, and he almost pitied the old lady who had phoned, because every day she would look out her window to see the sky blocked by big grey buildings and a church that had seen far better days.

To put it lightly, St Pete's was creepy.

The whole place screamed disuse: boarded up windows and an unkempt exterior – the picture of neglect. Smashed glass bottles, cigarette stubs and a used condom littered the steps up to the big heavy doors, which under closer inspection, were bolted firmly shut.

Confused, Max left the safety of the flickering streetlights and round the corner of the building – down a thin alleyway between the mossy walls of the church and one of the grey cement monstrosities – his hand hovering over the glock in its holster. It was two in the morning and much darker down the alleyway than out in the street, so Max fished in his pocket for the torch he'd brought with him and flicked it on. He wasn't sure whether the new light made the alley better or eerily worse.

Max wasn't an atheist; the war of faith and science was one he'd left alone. He just hadn't been brought up with a religion, so he didn't follow one. He guessed he could probably be defined as agnostic, if he had to be labelled. He knew the proof and value of science, of course, but like any other human being, he had questions. He sometimes found himself wondering about such things as whether there really was a higher power up there and what would really happen when he died. To be honest, he didn't like to dwell too long on the latter.

He found the backdoor to the church fast enough, because it was open. The chain that had fastened it shut had been cut and was dangling uselessly from the big metal handle. The cutters in question were nowhere in sight. He couldn't hear a sound within the church. In fact, even the distant city buzz of shouts, music, traffic and sirens in the background were muffled by the buildings either side of him. He wasn't sure if he'd ever considered Boston to be so quiet before.

Swallowing hard, Max decided to bite the bullet and get this over with; take names and throw out the kids who had thought it'd be fun to break in to creepy St Pete's and then he could go home to bed.

Max Coulson wasn't a religious man. Never really had been. In fact, he reckoned this was the first time he'd set foot in a church in about fifteen years.

"Hello?" He shouted as he stepped in through the back door. "Boston PD."

The ends of his words trailed into echoes. He stopped and listened.

Nothing.

Either the kids had already gone, or they were the quietest kids in the world.

The air was stiflingly thick and dusty. He coughed.

"Boston Police Department." He stated, his torch finding the open doorway that led from the side room into the heart of the church itself. "Show yourselves." He called as he stepped through it; his fingertips traced the butt of his glock again.

The church smelt funny. He remembered once going to a church as a kid with school. He hadn't liked the smell then. Musty and old. But this was something else. There was a tang to the air and an unpleasant one at that. Max couldn't place it.

And that was when his torchlight and then his gaze fell on someone kneeling between the pews, two rows from the front of the church.

"Oi!" He shouted.

The figure was cast in shadow, despite the torchlight, but Max could see it was a man with his head bent forward, hands clasped before him, as though in prayer. He was surprised it wasn't kids mucking about, just this one lone man. He was also mightily annoyed that this guy – who didn't even flinch at Max's voice - seemed to be taking the complete and utter piss.

"You are aware, Sir, that this church is no longer in use and was thoroughly locked. And that you are trespassing."

The man didn't move.

"You are aware that this can be classed as breaking and entering."

No response.

He didn't know what this guy's deal was. Was he drunk and had fallen asleep? Or was he just playing the joker? Either way, Max did not have the patience to deal with this.

"Sir, I suggest you remove yourself from the building immediately." Max declared through gritted teeth and stormed towards the man, hoping to startle him and get him to move his good-for-nothing ass.

Each step he took closer however, the more he began to doubt, the nerves building up inside him and coiling in his belly. Something wasn't right here. He could sense it in his bones.

The man still hadn't moved from his knelt position between the pews; he was still slumped forward in his silent prayer. It was then that it suddenly hit Max what that subtle but definitely there smell was in the air.

It was the coppery, distinctive stench of blood.

And that was when Max realised that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

When he reached the man he could smell it more strongly. Blood. Definitely blood. He gently pushed at the man's shoulder and the man's body rocked stiffly backwards. His head lolled back and to the side.

Max gagged and shot upright, hurrying backwards several steps, his feet tripping over themselves in his haste to move away.

That was when something knocked against the side of his head. Max let out a yell of surprise and swung around, shooting his torch beam in the direction the knock had come from.

He came face to face with a foot. A foot that was dangling in mid-air and swinging slightly now, at his head height. He moved the torch up the foot to the leg it was attached to, his eyes following unwillingly. He followed the leg up to the body, then the head. A drop of blood landed on Max's face. He let out an involuntarily shriek and choked back bile, stumbling backwards from the body, the torch shaking in his fumbling hand as it moved over from one pair of feet hanging uselessly in the air, to reveal another pair of feet.

"Oh my god!"

Max Coulson wasn't a religious man, but he found himself shouting out the big man's name that night.

He would never, ever forget that night.

The night he found the Saints.

The night the Saints had died.

x-X-x

Detective Duffy doubted he'd ever driven so fast. He glanced over at Dolly, who sat upright and rigid in the passenger seat, wringing his hands in his lap, staring out at the road ahead of them.

Duffy had groaned loudly when he had gotten the early-as-all-hell call from the PD that morning. He had rolled out of his bed and had offered a tired and grumpy 'What is it?' before all his fatigue had vanished when he was told exactly what the wakeup call was for.

He'd nearly dropped the phone.

He'd wanted to crawl back into bed and wake up all over again and realise that the phone call had just been a part of some sick dream.

But fifteen minutes later he'd arrived at Dolly's house and the other man had opened the door with eyes as wide as saucers and skin as pale and sickly as Duffy felt. And that was when it had truly hit him that this was it. This was real.

They had driven the whole way to the disused St Peter's Church in shaken, horrified silence.

The Saints couldn't be dead.

They just couldn't be.

_-x-_

_They were jumped right outside McGinty's. The place where everything had begun was also ironically the location of the beginning of the end, not that the brothers knew it at the time._

"_Doc is gunna kick our fuck-asses for being late, you know." Murphy quipped as they crossed the road towards the pub, where they had been staying since their release from The Hoag. _

"_Nah, we'll just blame Romeo." Connor grinned over at the Mexican, "And his Uncle issues."_

"_Shut the fuck up, man!" Romeo gave the fairer twin a shove, "Uncle Cesar gave us the lowdown on the gang meet, didn't he?"_

"_Yeah, eventually; after you bragged for an hour!" Murphy complained. _

_Connor laughed at Romeo's offended face and clapped him on the back, "Ah come on Romeo! You know we're only joking. We think it's very…sweet."_

"_I'm not sweet! I'm badass!" Romeo protested._

_The twins shared amused grins, right before they were hit so hard in the backs of their heads that they were unconscious before they hit the ground._

_-x-_

The area around the church was corded off. There was a crowd of curious people gathering along the edges of the restricted area and cop cars were everywhere.

"Fucking hell." Dolly muttered under his breath beside him as Duffy parked the car.

The minute they stepped out of the vehicle the other FBI agents were immediately greeting them with the lowdown, which Duffy only caught snatches of in his stunned state: "Call to the station…old lady complaining…disturbance…break in at the Church…cop – Max Coulson – went to investigate…found…"

Duffy took in a deep breath as they walked through the now un-barricaded main doors of the church to see exactly what the unfortunate Max Coulson had found.

_-x-_

_The fog cleared from Connor's vision as he was being dragged out of a van and into some building on some street that he'd never been before. He kicked up one hell of a fuss._

"_Get the fuck off!" He lashed out, but realised that they were outnumbered by four people at least. He couldn't see properly in the dark, not with only one pathetic streetlight that was stuttering and fighting to keep going just as much as he was. "Murph!" He yelled out when he spotted his brother being similarly dragged between two burly men and similarly fighting to get free and cursing all the while. _

"_Connor!" Murphy shouted in response, before there was a loud 'whumph' and Murphy made a choked out noise of pain._

_-x-_

The first thing Duffy laid eyes upon was the wooden arch at the front of the church which, presumably, had once held a large cross with the figure of Jesus upon it, which would have been removed due to the Church's redundancy. But instead there were two other figures strung up in its place, arms tied outwards in the images of crosses.

It was them.

"The Saints." A Detective – Carter – informed them, as if they hadn't already been dealt that devastating blow of realisation. "You two are the only ones left who have worked on The Saints case from the beginning. The boss wanted you guys here to investigate."

"Oh…oh god…" Duffy heard Dolly breathe out beside him.

Duffy nudged him in the arm to effectively silence him. Yes, Dolly was perfectly right to sound so mortified. And yes Duffy had every right to throw up right then and there and dear god did he want to. But they couldn't.

Their association with The Saints was supposed to be entirely cat-and-mouse: Detectives and vigilantes. Their job was to investigate Saints-based crime scenes and try to track them down. No-one but a very select few knew that they were friends with the men they had supposedly spent years trying to bring down. No-one but that very select few knew that Dolly and Duffy had in fact assisted the Saints in murdering Guiseppe and Concezio Yakavetta.

So they had to try and act professionally, despite the fact that three of the five select few people who knew Dolly and Duffy's secret – three of their friends - were dead right in front of them.

As they walked down the aisle – slow steps that rang off the stone floor like an ominous death march – Duffy saw that it was indeed Romeo who was kneeling among the pews, two rows from the front, as Duffy had feared. Romeo's body had apparently been slouched forward as though in prayer, but Coulson had moved him before realising he was dead. After many a lesson taught to them by Smecker, it only took Duffy a glance at Romeo to know that he had been shot with guns that had silencers on them, and that two people of differing heights had shot a bullet each through Romeo's eyes, in a sick imitation of what the Saint's did to the bad men they removed from the world. There were no coins in the holes where Romeo's eyes had been, however, and his long black hair was clotted with blood. His wrists were tied together, and under them lay a torn out page of a Bible, with the words '_Thou shalt not worship false saints_' scrawled across it in red ink.

Duffy spotted numerous other writings in red – which he hoped was paint and not blood – on the walls of the church. Writings such as '_Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,_','_Thou shalt not murder_' and '_Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death'._

_-x-_

_It was a church. That was where they had been brought. The sick fucks had brought battery-powered lights and had already written a load of words all over the walls. _

"_It's nice to know how much planning you've put into our visit." Connor sniped as they were pushed to their knees in a row, facing out into the aisle between the pews, but inside he was panicking. There were eight men in total, all armed and as calm as you like. This whole thing had been planned and pre-organised. These guys knew exactly who Connor and Murphy were, and, according to their writings on the walls, were going to punish them for it. _

"_Only the best for the Saints." The nearest man confirmed, his accent also informing Connor that these guys were Italian-American. Great. Connor and Murphy had killed plenty of those, and this plot could be to get revenge for any one of those deaths._

"_I assume we've wronged you in some way." Connor kept his voice light and innocent, eyeing the steadily bleeding wound on Romeo's head from when he'd been knocked out, and Murphy's cut lip and bruised cheek on account of his struggles._

"_Bet they deserved it." Murphy muttered under his breath before spitting blood onto the floor._

"_Look, I think there's been some mistake here." Romeo tried, nudging Murphy's side. His eyes never left the men before them. "You got the wrong guys."_

_The men laughed mirthlessly. _

"_We know all too well that we've got the right guys. We're just savouring the moment before…" The man trailed off. "Well, I think you can guess."_

_Connor closed his eyes. He could guess all too well how this was going to end if he, his brother and Romeo didn't come out on top. And the odds were not in their favour._

"_You really want to start this? 'Cos we've just been taking it easy." Romeo warned. "You really wanna start this?"_

_One of the men snorted "Yeah, yeah I think we do." and walked forwards, delivering a swift kick to Romeo's ribs before any of them could process what he was going to do._

"_Hey!" Murphy lunged for the man angrily, before getting beaten back to the ground by two of the men standing behind them._

_Connor shot up in fury and leapt at the men hitting Murphy, before he himself was dragged back by his shirt._

_And that's when shit went entirely out of hand._

_-x-_

Duffy and Dolly finally dared to reach the head of the Church and the subjects of the wall-writer's interest.

The Saints.

Or, as Duffy and Dolly knew them, The MacManus brothers.

"It isn't pretty." Detective Carter commented.

That was putting it real fucking lightly.

Duffy had to hold in a devastated gasp, had to hold back the tears from his eyes. He could feel Dolly's arm press against his as the other man shuddered at the sight before them.

Connor and Murphy were strung up like sacrifices. Like crucified criminals. Both were stripped to their underwear and had almost identical stab wounds in their stomachs.

Connor was on the left side. Into his chest were carved the words '_The Saints_' and the words on Murphy's chest - '_Are Sinners_' - completed the statement. As though in response to the words on each brothers chest, the additional cuts that littered their bodies fitted accordingly. On Connor's head was a halo of barbed wire that had been pressed down into the skin, and trails of blood – dried now – streaked down his face and turned his fairer hair dark. As Detective Carter led Dolly and Duffy around the back of the brothers, through the archway, they could see that angel's wings had been carved into Connor's skin over the tattoo of Jesus' torso on his back. Murphy, on the other hand, had devil horns carved into his forehead and a tail that curled its way down his leg, the pointed end of which cut deep into his ankle. Both brothers' eyes were closed, their heads tipped forwards, their chins identically resting on their chests.

Duffy swallowed over the lump in his throat when his eyes fell on where the brother's hands had been tied in order to keep them in the crucified positions and that despite being limp now, the fingers of Connor's left hand and the fingers of Murphy's right were linked together. Duffy could imagine the brother's hands grasped together in their final moments, their eyes locked on each other. His eyes travelled over the words _Veritas _and A_equitas _that crossed each other where the brother's linked fingers still seemed to hold on. _Truth _and _justice_. Duffy's jaw clenched. Fat lot of good those words were to the brothers now, but Duffy would be damned if he wasn't going to get them it one final time in the form of catching whichever bastards did this.

Dolly was obviously thinking the same, as he leant forward to hiss into Duffy's ear, "How are we meant to keep fucking neutral on this?"

Duffy didn't know. He itched for vengeance. Connor, Murphy and Romeo had been his _friends. _To see them this way - to know someone had inflicted this on them - was enough to make anyone long for revenge. But he and Dolly were in a tight situation. The Saints needed avenging, but in some people's eyes, they would see it as the brothers getting what was coming to them, that they were just receiving what they'd dished out – murdering murderers. And how could Duffy and Dolly justify getting payback without getting suspected themselves?

"I don't know." Duffy responded, so close to Dolly's ear that the words were practically a murmur of a breath. "But we gotta keep face for now. Yeah?"

Dolly nodded and jerked backwards, eyes landing on the nearest forensic, "Did they suffer?" He asked her.

_-x-_

_Romeo couldn't see. _

_Blood was running into his eyes._

_Whether it was his blood or theirs he had no fucking idea._

_The Italians had been whaling on them for the past ten minutes at least. Connor and Murphy were probably putting up a better fight than he was, but he couldn't see._

_He could hear them though. Hear them shouting and swearing in various different languages. He caught the odd snapped Spanish. He could hear his own voice, too; could hear his own cursing and grunting._

_But then a deep voice broke through the ones he recognised. "Enough." It said._

_And it all stopped. There was silence._

_Romeo was back on his knees again, but he didn't know where, couldn't see past the blood in the left eye and the fact he was pretty positive the other was swelling shut. His ribs groaned with breaks and his shoulder and left leg fucking screamed with agony and holy shit he'd never felt so out of control in a situation like this before. Not even knowing that The Saints were in this with him was any comfort._

_He couldn't hear the brothers. But that didn't mean that a thousand messages weren't passing wordlessly between the twins as they looked at each other. Their ability to talk to each other without words was a talent that had always awed him and freaked him out in equal measure._

_He'd give anything to be able to see them working out how to get the fuck out of this. He blinked but there was still blood running in his good eye. "Fucks sake." He growled out._

_Muttering broke out not far away but he could tell by the voices that it wasn't who he wanted to hear._

"_Con? Murph?" He rasped out, whilst their captors were obviously distracted._

"_Romeo." Murphy acknowledged immediately, but his voice was thick and pain-laced. Not like Murphy at all._

_The muttering stopped._

_And then there was a very distinctive clicking noise and Murphy said his name again, but this time it was loud – a shriek of panic – "Romeo!"_

_A hand grasped the collar of Romeo's jacket and dragged him backwards a couple of feet. His broken body protested but he kept his jaw clenched shut. He wouldn't give these greasy motherfuckers the satisfaction. It took barely seconds but it felt like a lifetime before he was being positioned back on his knees. _

"_This is how you do it Saints, huh?" The deep voice behind Romeo said._

_And then, by some fucking miracle, Romeo could see out of his left eye. He wasn't sure if it was a mercy or a curse, though. His vision fell straight on the twins, who were looking like they hadn't many of their nine lives left. They were a mess. He reckoned they probably had as many bruises, cuts, broken bones and battered organs as him. Each had a gun pointed at their heads but it was him they were staring at. They looked like they should be in pain, but all he could see was fear. Murphy's eyes were trained on him and Connor's at something over the top of his head._

_He leant back a little in astonishment. He hadn't seen the brothers look anything remotely like this since Noah and Greenly died and they had soon masked it away in order to deal with being locked up in The Hoag. As he leant back he felt two cold circles lightly press into the back of his skull. _

_He understood then._

"_Ro." Connor started, voice twisted and choked off; his eyes falling to catch Romeo's good eye. _

"_This how you do it Saints?" The voice behind Romeo demanded again._

_Romeo knew what was happening without having to look. He knew men were standing behind him, each holding a gun to the back of his skull. So they were going all Saints on him were they? Nah. No chance. No-one could do it quite like the Saints._

_It's why he'd joined them in the first place, really._

"_No." He spat. "You've not quite got the style." _

_Murphy must have seen something in the men behind Romeo that Romeo obviously couldn't, because he lurched forwards with Romeo's name on his lips before Romeo's head suddenly screamed like surround-sound and it banged and it hurt and even though he was dead pretty much immediately, and all that pain had happened in a split millisecond, he was certain he still registered the Saints' faces painted with his blood before he stopped seeing anything again._

_-x-_

The woman turned to Dolly and Duffy in surprise as she pulled off one of her latex gloves with a snap. "You want to know if The Saints suffered?"

"Yes." Duffy cut in, "So we can understand the order of events."

The woman eyed them for a moment before nodding and complying. "Obviously more will be known once they are…" She paused, "Brought down…but from observation, it is obvious that they were beaten beforehand and I wouldn't be surprised if the autopsy revealed some broken bones. The stab wounds in their stomachs may have been made before they were tied up. I'd also say at least one of them was still alive when they were tied up, as you can see from their joined hands. The cuts on their heads, from the looks of it, were made before they were tied up and before death. The other cuts however: the writings on their chests, the wings on Connor MacManus and the devil tail on Murphy MacManus, were most likely made after death, as they have not bled as much and the wings in particular are neat; so I assume there wasn't much of a struggle…"

Duffy closed his eyes briefly, trying to rid from his mind the image of Connor no longer struggling against the knife pressing into and slicing his skin. The fact that the sick bastards spent the time tying the McManus brothers up when they were weakened and then carving into their skin after watching them die was horrifying to think of.

The woman didn't notice Duffy and Dolly's discomfort and continued, "They ultimately died of blood loss and internal bleeding caused by the stab wounds and beatings. It will have taken them a while to die, so yes, the men that did this wanted The Saints to suffer, and to watch each other suffer. That would explain their use of a knife to cause the damage rather than a gun."

Duffy glanced at Dolly, who was scrubbing a hand through his hair fretfully. "Right." Dolly said eventually, before spinning around to face out into the church, and Duffy knew his friend was about to try and distract himself from the horrors that had just been confirmed by taking charge and focusing on how to deal with the situation, rather than think of the events of the situation itself.

Dolly's voice was commanding as he addressed everyone in the room with a confidence that Smecker used to hold. "This crime was clearly made in response to the actions of The Saints over the past decade. The Saints killed the bad men of Boston, and so this is apparently someone's retaliation by punishing The Saint's for murder – for being 'bad men' themselves. I am also very confident in stating here and now that this is no 'righteous' deed of some religious nutjob trying to right the wrongs of The Saints and 'restore balance' or some bullshit. This is clearly a mockery of religion if anything – the desecration of the church, the murders within its walls, the fact that the murders are complete hypocrisy of the Biblical-style writings on the walls that condemn murderers, and the manner that The Saints bodies are…displayed – this is the offence of men who only give a fuck about revenge, and are only using the religious aspects of The Saints' lives against them. In regards to who is responsible, there is more than one pair of hands in this crime and revenge is the sole reason for these murders. Whether it's the Italians, the Russians…god only knows…but we will find out, and we will put them behind bars."

"Now, we've got to be sensible about this." Duffy jumped in where Dolly trailed off, "The media cannot, and I repeat – _cannot_ – be told that this crime scene marks the end of The Saints."

"Why not?" Detective Carter asked, "You want to save the embarrassment over the fact that it was someone else that finally solved the problem of The Saints?"

Duffy glared at him. "No. Think about it," He gestured to the bodies behind him and all eyes in the room followed it, "These men have the backing of half of the people in this city – remember the backlash that locking them in the Hoag created? – sure, the other half would be happier knowing The Saints are gone, but if this gets out, think about those who supported them. I can guarantee that at least five copycats would spring up within the year – people who think they can take the place The Saints have left – and if the mobs get word of it, then what's to stop them now they have no fear of the wrath of The Saints haunting their every move? Because they know that The Saints had more power for punishment than the law itself half the time; people like Yakavetta found that out well enough."

"But the people who did this," Another Detective pushed, "Say it was Yakavetta's old lot - they will surely have told people by now that The Saints are no longer a problem."

"Not necessarily. They may not want to risk other gangs finding out. There may be one smug, bolder group of thugs out there right now and it's them we need to track down. If the other mobs still live in concern of the Saints, then the people behind this are the only people who know and benefit from what has happened here, because they will be more daring in business. So I will repeat…no-one tells the media. No-one tells anyone that does not need to know. We keep this hushed so we can figure out how to deal with it when people do find out; because it will inevitably get out eventually, but the longer we can keep it at bay the better. Are we in agreement?"

Apparently, everyone was won round, and soon forensics moved back in and everyone else back to work.

Duffy pulled Dolly aside for a quiet word. "Good speech." Dolly quipped, though his eyes remained sad, and his face serious. "But we'll have to feed the media something."

"And we will. Just not that it's Connor, Murphy and Romeo."

"I can't believe this." Dolly breathed, finally allowing pain to edge each word. "Con and Murph! Romeo. I just…can't believe it. Not now…not after…"

"You mean after everything we've lost? That they lost?"

Dolly nodded.

-x-

"_You motherfuckers!" Murphy shrieked, the rage in him driving him forwards. He didn't care there was still a gun trained to his head, Romeo was fucking dead. _

_He was on his feet, heading for Romeo's prone body, when he vaguely heard Connor shout his name. It had to be less than a second later before Murphy stilled, because there was suddenly a dull, numbing warmth spreading across his belly, before it gave way to the feeling of fire. _

_One of the men between him and Romeo had pulled out a knife before Murphy had realised. He looked into the man's eyes and saw…nothing. There were cold and empty. Unforgiving. Murphy could only let out a gasp of surprise before he hit the floor._

_Immediately Connor was there, and he was looking blurrily up at Connor's face and felt his head resting on the warmth of Connor's leg. Connor's other leg was spread out next to him at a funny angle._

_Funny that this was the first time tonight that he felt properly safe, when by the feel of it, he had a gaping wound in his abdomen. _

"_It's ok, brother," Connor was chanting softly. Murphy felt a hand running through his hair, as the other pressed against his stomach and caused the pain to flare. _

_Murphy screwed his eyes shut. "Con…"_

"_It's alright Murph, I'm here."_

_And then he wasn't._

_Murphy's head hit cold concrete and he turned his head. "Con?" He opened his eyes to see his brother being dragged away from him, and held still and upright on his dodgy leg._

_Murphy moved. In any other circumstance he wouldn't have been able to summon the strength to move. But this was Connor._

"_Like fucking cockroaches." One of the men standing around watching them commented as Murphy hauled himself upright._

_He spotted a knife in the hand of the man standing in front of Connor. Connor had seen it too._

_Murphy went for it but was too far away._

_Murphy locked eyes with Connor as the knife drove into Connor's flesh. The same area Murphy had been stabbed._

_By the time Connor had dropped to his knees with a scream, Murphy had reached him and could only collapse in front of him, cradling Connor's face in his hands. "Hey, look at me. Con look at me!"_

_Connor's glazed eyes found his again as he shuddered breaths. "Fuck." His brother stuttered out._

"_Hurts doesn't it?" Murphy smirked, sure he was running on pure adrenaline now. "But we've been through worse than this brother, we've been through worse. We've been got by guns Con, this is just a stupid knife."_

"_This is your Rambo shit." Connor ground out._

_Murphy snorted. "Course it is Con, course it is. And you're stronger than that shit."_

"_But you're not stronger than us." A smug voice catcalled, breaking through into their little moment and reminding Murphy that this was it. That knife wounds were just the beginning._

_They weren't escaping this._

_Murphy just wished he and Connor were alone. Far, far away from here. Back in Ireland, lying on the grass with fuck all to do other than reminisce about being Saints whilst watching over the sheep; wondering what Da was going to cook for dinner, planning to go see Ma, and maybe thinking about inviting Roc, Romeo, Doc, Greenly, Dolly, Duffy, Smecker and Eunice over for a taste of real Ireland. That was what he wanted._

_Maybe he was going to be seeing Da, Rocco, Romeo and Greenly sooner rather than later anyway._

"_And now," The man who appeared to be in charge – the deep voiced one – began, "We show the world that the Saints are actually nothing but sinners. Murderers."_

"_Go ahead." Connor goaded through gritted teeth, his eyes never leaving Murphy's, and Murphy could see that Connor had had exactly the same thought process as he had just had; that they weren't getting out of this. Murphy wouldn't have been surprised if Connor had got exactly the same pictures of Ireland and lost friends running through his head too. "Show how hypocritical you shits are."_

_Murphy snorted with sour amusement, but his eyes flicked up when they saw metal glint over Connor's head, fearing that his brother's taunt had made them ready to use the knife again. But all he saw was a ring of barbed wire._

_Connor must have seen the utter confusion in Murphy's face because he whispered "Murph? What…"_

_Right before the ring of wire was pushed down straight onto the crown of Connor's head._

_Murphy's mouth opened in a silent scream as the barbs dug into Connor's skin and sent blood running down his face and into his hair. Connor didn't remain so silent._

_Murphy reached out and clutched his brother's hand and Connor's jaw snapped shut in response. He squeezed Murphy's fingers so hard it felt like they might break, but Murphy didn't care. They'd just add to the collection of broken bones he already had. As long as Connor didn't give them the satisfaction of screaming. Murphy tried to keep eye contact with Connor as long as he could, but Connor was blinking blood out of his eyes and finally it was Murphy who was forced to look away when they pulled his head back by his hair and started carving devil horns into his forehead. Connor started shouting again, but his voice had gone hoarse. Murphy didn't think he could scream anymore even if he wanted to._

_And yet the grip on his brother's hand gave him comfort against the pain._

_-x-_

"Greenly gave his life for this." Dolly said. "He believed in it. The boys lost Noah and Rocco. Smecker and Eunice are still in hiding. They all believed in what The Saints could do."

They had thought Paul Smecker to be dead – he even had a funeral and a grave for Christ sake - until he'd made contact just over a year ago with a plot to get Connor and Murphy released from the Hoag, with Eunice Bloom right beside him. They played their parts in secret and then disappeared again once Connor, Murphy and Romeo stepped back on the other side of the bars. Smecker and Eunice had to keep their distance: Smecker was a dead man walking, and Eunice was wanted for being an accomplice to The Saints. Accomplices to the Saints; that's what Dolly and Duffy had been; and Greenly too.

"And so they should." Duffy said, "We believed in them too, didn't we?"

Dolly nodded. "Course." He visibly paled when he turned to Duffy and said "We're going to have to tell Smecker and Eunice."

"We may not have to." Duffy said, his eyes flicking back to where the bodies of the MacManus brothers were being lowered to the ground, the crime scene already been thoroughly photographed and investigated. "You know what they're like. It's only a matter of time before they find out." He winced as he watched the brother's hands being parted for the final time, and had to turn away as they were moved towards separate body bags. "If they don't know already."

x-X-x

"What is it?" Eunice Bloom asked, her heels clicking as she approached her mentor, who clutched his phone to his ear with pale fingers, his lips set in a thin line and his face grave and fixed apart from the stressed jump of his jaw.

He turned to her, and his eyes locked to hers, and she could sense something was terribly wrong in a heartbeat. "The boys?" She guessed.

"Dead." The word passed his lips like a shiver.

"What?" Eunice took a step back, like she'd been hit by the force of one word. "They can't be…"

"They can." He said; voice harsh in his attempt to hide grief. "They weren't immortal. They weren't 'angels'. They were human. Every human bleeds. Every human dies."

Eunice grasped the nearest chair and sat down in it, face stricken and still disbelieving. "The Saints have fallen." She whispered, daring herself to believe it.

"The Saints have fallen." Smecker confirmed. "Romeo with them. But there is at least, a reason to be thankful."

"Thankful?" Eunice hissed, a single tear building in the corner of her eye that she refused to let fall and blinked away immediately. "What reason do we have to be thankful?!"

"That Connor and Murphy were not parted. That one did not leave the world without the other." Smecker said, clasping his hands behind his back and staring out of the window, without truly seeing. "Yes, The Saints fell, but, there is a small mercy in the fact that at least they did so together."

_-x-_

_They'd been left to bleed for a while before they were stripped to their underwear and hung up side by side, in some sick imitation of a crucifixion. _

"_Classy way to go." Connor coughed through the blood filling his mouth, his throat, his stomach…his lungs._

"_Fucking shitty way to go and you know it." Murphy's voice broke through the wet bloody breaths he was struggling with._

"_Nah." Connor said, turning his head as best he could, trying to ignore the barbed wire still dug into his skin and holding his twin's – now frightened – gaze. "Could be worse."_

"_Oh yeah, and how's that then brother?" Murphy shot him a tired, macabre smile._

_Connor reached out weakly with his hand and sighed gratefully when it caught onto Murphy's. "We're together aren't we?"_

_Murphy then allowed Connor a proper smile. The one he reserved just for Connor. It lit up his bloodstained face and miraculously made Connor feel that much better. "Aye, that we are." He said, before his eyelids started to droop._

"_Murph?" Connor shook his brother's hand limply. "Murph!"_

"_I love you, Con." Murphy whispered._

_Connor looked down at the men standing below their feet, laughing and jeering and not listening to a word they were saying to each other. He watched one of them pulling out a knife and assumed that the torture wouldn't be over for their bodies even when their souls had moved on, but all he found himself doing was thanking the lord that he and Murphy's souls were going to be leaving together._

_He looked back at his brother to see Murphy watching him right back, almost unnervingly distant now._

"_I love you too, Murph." _

_Murphy seemed to hone back in to Connor's words because he smiled again, blood-stained teeth and lips. "See you on the other side, brother?"_

"_Aye, Murph." Connor whispered. It was as though he could feel his own life draining away from him as he watched it drain from Murphy beside him. He still held onto his twin's hand, even when Murphy's dark haired head dropped, his chin resting on his chest as he let out his last breath. "Aye, that you will." Connor finished with his own final breath._

_x-x_

_When The Saints were dead, Giovanni Yakavetta had his men carve the words 'The Saints' into Connor MacManus' chest, and angel wings on his back; and a devil tail down Murphy MacManus' leg and the words 'Are Sinners' on his chest. He had his men arrange the Mexican into a praying position between the pews – so he could plead for the Saint's souls and his own – before he took one last look at The Saints and left them hanging there._

_He didn't care that the bodies were going to be found. His work here was done. He had his revenge for his friends, his cousin and his cousin's boy._

_They left the Saints there._

_x-x_

_Veritas and Aequitas held onto each other still._

* * *

**Thank you for reading, and despite the fact that I did just kill off The Saints in a terrible way, I hope you enjoyed the read. If you did, please take a second to leave me a review. All reviews are most appreciated.  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Boondock Saints and its characters, they belong to Troy Duffy.**

**mnm37 x**


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